[Evaluation of the effect of pesticide use on the health of rural workers in irrigated fruit farming].

This study refers to the impact of the use of pesticides on human health in the São Francisco River Valley region, in which, through semi-structured interviews, the objective was to analyze the influence of social, cultural and economic determinants on the health-disease process of workers exposed to agrochemicals. For data collection, 339 rural workers from irrigated perimeters of the cities of Juazeiro, in the State of Bahia, and Petrolina, in the State of Pernambuco, were interviewed. All were male, of which 182 (53,7%) were rural owners and 157 (46,3%) were employees, predominantly between 40 and 59 years of age among owners and under 39 among workers.